Hi there, sweet friends! I’ve been reading a lot of poetry lately. I’ve been talking a lot to friends about poetry lately. I’ve been thinking a lot about this video from an interview with Zadie Smith on writing in which she says, “Optimism is embedded in the form. To write at all is not to completely despair.” I’ve been thinking, too, about the work of Leila Chatti in her latest poetry collection, Wildness Before Something Sublime. Chatti’s book, written during a time when she wasn’t writing, holds grief so tenderly in its weathered palms and is also a profoundly hopeful collection. It is “Sunflowers / by the roadside, mountains / lavender beyond.” It is “gift, gift, gift.” It is every “and yet” I can name. It is optimism, embedded in the form. It is creation as a rigorous practice of hope. 

It reminds me of the incredible album that my friend, Alex, released in September. One of the tracks, The Thread, is full of so many poetic and quotable lines that have been running through my head on the daily, including, “Walk through the door of what hurts / Expand and contract, that’s just how it works / Trust, now, know that it’ll change.”

That last part - that trust - has felt almost impossible to access in recent months, but then I talked with a dear friend about change as the only constant. About paradigm shifts that you don’t know you’re in until you’re through them. About seasons of expansion and contraction and how we inevitably cycle through both. About not letting each other “turn away from the ache of this world,” in the words of poet, Patrycja Humienik. About walking through the door of what hurts. And, sometimes, seeing that trust pay off in spades.

All that to say, here I am, trying to write my way into hope in the face of ache. Trying to read my way into the world’s ever-present gifts. Trying to listen and sing my way into voice-filled galleries, offering rallying cries. Trying to huddle close to those who care about the world and press a poem or a blazing autumn leaf or a cup of hot tea into their outstretched hands. I’m trying to write and read and love as a means of leading myself away from a point of complete despair. As a means of looking for, and finding, “mountains, lavender beyond.”

So, in the practice of Ross Gay, I’ll share with you a few recent delights in photo form.

Finally, because I always want my words to hold hands with my actions, here’s a tangible care opportunity from my little corner of the world: 

The Center for Work Education and Employment (CWEE) in Denver, CO is a workforce development program supporting low-income families in attaining stable employment. This is a cause very close to my heart and they also have a food pantry that is filling an urgent community need in the absence of full SNAP benefits. A donation to their Essential Resources fund to keep this pantry filled goes a long way toward supporting Denver families. 

“There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal. I know the world is bruised and bleeding, and though it is important not to ignore its pain, it is also critical to refuse to succumb to its malevolence. Like failure, chaos contains information that can lead to knowledge—even wisdom. Like art.”

—Toni Morrison

See you again soon and feel free to send some of your own delights my way in the meantime. Personally, I’m still on a hope scroll high from last night and going to hold onto that for as long as I can. So glad you’re here.